Living life one day at a time. Sharing recipes, joy, inspiration, thoughts for the day, photos of our dog, Bailey! The "Cutest Dog in America."
Now I'm in a new phase, sharing the joy (and challenges) of Co-owning the Urban Grill Food Truck. Stay tuned...

Refrigerator minus the doors on left, range with griddle and burners on right. Yes that's a tight aisle. One person cooks at a time! This a food truck not the Iron Chef display kitchen!

Double convection ovens/griddle and a few burners. Yes, we have plans for the big open space next to the ovens, too! More appliances coming...

The stove is not white, that's protective plastic still covering the stainless. Note that we just made it in with the stove before the wheel hub. We didn't really. We knew we'd need to cut into the wheel hub by a few inches and re-weld that area. It's that kind of thing which is making all of this take so long...

Several more appliances to be installed before we can finish it up, yes too many yet to go. But it IS progress.

Appliances, service counter, and wrap on the outside (custom wrap is instead of paint) and a few other modifications...

But we are moving forward. Oh, then there's the generator, water tanks, it doesn't end...And then inspections because it all has to meet the approval of the County Health Inspector. We have a way to go yet.

Fortunately, I've been taking a course in patience lately so this is just more practice at that. I'm enjoying it. (!)
Thanks for your patience also, and for following along..

Saturday, November 3, 2012

I'm a fan of classic rock. (Reference to title of this blog. It's Steve Miller, if you aren't up on classic rock trivia.) That's good, it gives me something to listen to while I'm waiting for the long anticipated debut of the food truck!! Patiently, I wait, of course.

It's not that there isn't anything to do to get ready for business to open, there are hundreds of things to do. Some of those are reliant on having the truck in possession, some on just knowing when we will have the truck and when we can debut. Everything is just taking longer than anticipated, no problems per se, just slow progress. I'm confident when it's complete we will have the very well built, reliable, customized truck and commercial kitchen we were seeking.

At this point the upside, I'm always looking for one, is the summer rush of Fountain Square lunches and multiple large events is over. We can 'get our feet wet' slowly at our own pace without feeling compelled to push ourselves out there prior to being ready to face the public and cook for a larger size group. It is what it is, don't you love that expression? I don't, but it fits.

In the meantime, while out in LA for my niece's wedding, I took that opportunity to visit some food trucks. LA being the mecca of food trucks and food truck culture. Someone recently told me when a home in LA goes on the market for sale, on the listing along with the schools and other recreation in the area, is listed the food trucks which visit that area or neighborhood. That's a food truck culture! (Thanks for that info Cheryl.)

Food Trucks line up on Wilshire Blvd across from LACMA

But I digress, food trucks of every type are everywhere in LA, and it's quite fascinating to see the ways they are different and the similarities to f.t.'s in Cincinnati or other areas.
There are different requirements for the trucks in California and specifically LA, so they look a little different than here. But also people will stand in line longer in LA for their food. Much longer. It's part of the culture. It's not unusual to see a line of devoted customers going down the block and around the corner for one (good) food truck!

Because LA is so spread out, some of the more successful f.t. companies have more than one truck and might be in up to three or four locations for lunch, then move for dinner, and then again for late night. Reading their schedule can be quite intense. Hence many trucks have full-time staff who work 'off truck' on scheduling, prep, stocking, and logistics. This is in juxtaposition to Cincinnati where any entity can only own one truck in the Cincinnati Food Truck program, that's regardless of whether they serve the same type of food on each of their trucks or want to develop different trucks of different concepts. Nope, only one per company/owner in Cincinnati! Let's keep those businesses small!

I was blessed and so excited to meet many helpful people while in LA. My sweet niece Sara, works for Susan Feniger's Street, a really great restaurant renowned for their interpretation of street food from all over the world and owned by celebrity chef Susan Feniger. Street and the owners are also affiliated with Border Grill which has
multiple locations, two food trucks and a 'food stop' in downtown LA.

Kaya Toast - a staple @ Street. (I'd make the trip back just for this.)

Of course, we had to visit Street and had an excellent meal. Was it a meal? Or just plates of everything they make there brought to us in triplicate to feed our whole crowd, an extravaganza of delicious small plates of very unusual food combinations. They all worked great! It was delicious and so fun to try everything. The co-owner with Susan is Kajsa Alger (pronounced 'Sasha') and she was there that evening. It was so nice of her to visit with us and send over dessert for all of us. But also speak personally with Dick and I to give us great info and feedback about the food truck business and culture from an LA perspective, but also some great universal information about food trucks in general.

The next day Dick and I visited food trucks around LA. Eric from Komodo ("Dangerously Good Food") food truck, stopped everything when he learned I am building a truck. He insisted I try his 'steak taco' in addition to the Java tacos we'd already ordered. We were just going to share so we could visit other trucks too. We came away from Komodo full, happy, and with even more knowledge about the business, and with another food truck friend. Eric was happy to talk truck, and share his thoughts, he was really enthusiastic and encouraging which was heart warming.

This is the top of the line of trucks. It extends beyond this photo and into the next block.

From the Komodo truck we went to the Art Museum, LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, don't you love acronyms?) where there was a food truck line up. That was fun to see also. It was hard to get a photo of all of the trucks in a line. There were 15 trucks there in all. LA has over 400 trucks. We didn't really make contact with any workers on these trucks, we just watched. Really it was remarkable Eric from Komodo took/found the time to talk to me. I wasn't expecting or asking for that during the busy lunch rush.

Mark Twain famously stated, "if the world is about to
end, go to Cincinnati. Everything happens there 10 years later!" If
you've had any conversation with me about the pending truck, you've heard me
quote that back to you and you know why that excites me. It is holding true in the food truck business that Cincinnati is quite a bit slower than other comparable cities in our food truck program and the number of trucks etc.

There is plenty of room to grow and for minds and palettes to expand with
new food ideas. This week I met BJ., who is opening a Korean BBQ truck
next week in Cincinnati. Just from speaking to him I know his food is
going to be great, I can't wait to try it. It's a 'win' for Cincinnati
to have a new truck, it's a 'win' for all of us in the food truck
business to have someone out there serving great food which adds a different type of food choice. Look for BJ's truck, tell him you read
about it in my blog, the truck is called Red Sesame. Also he's new to town, so
be sure to give him a Cincinnati welcome.

I did really learn some great tips and enjoyed seeing the LA scene. But I'm thrilled Randy and I are starting our business in Cincinnati. We are on the beginning of an exciting trend with new dining options and clearly many things happening around Cincinnati. We are the "new guys" to those locally who've had their trucks for awhile, but compared to those other cities and programs, Cincinnati is in it's Food Truck infancy. We are all on the beginning of the curve and that is a great place to be!

Peace to all,
Betsy
Make the most of today, it's the only one we are guaranteed!

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About Me

I'm Betsy Eicher, living and enjoying life one day at a time, grateful for each and every day! Sharing life with my husband and son, Dick and Eliot, and our mini labradoodle, Bailey.
The newer focus of this blog will be to share some of the joys and travails of starting up a Gourmet Food Truck!
If you read the older blog posts you'll read of the big time life style changes I made upon finding out I had a bummer of a liver disease. In those posts I wrote about the changes I made and shared some great recipes and family stories.
I'm still all about eating and drinking only those things which will help me be here to enjoy another day with my many great friends, family, and Bailey!!